The island then called Mona, now Anglesey, at that time was the principal residence of the Druids. Here their councils were held, and their commands from hence were dispersed among all the British nations. Paulinus proposed, in reducing this their favorite and sacred seat, to destroy, or at least greatly to weaken, the body of the Druids, and thereby to extinguish the great actuating principle of all the Celtic people, and that which was alone capable of communicating order and energy to their operations. Whilst the Roman troops were passing that strait which divides this island from the continent of Britain, they halted on a sudden,--not checked by the resistance of the enemy, but suspended by a spectacle of an unusual and altogether surprising nature. On every side of the British army were seen bands of Druids in their most sacred habits surrounding the troops, lifting their hands to heaven, devoting to death their enemies, and animating their disciples to religious frenzy by the uncouth ceremonies of a savage ritual, and the horrid mysteries of a superstition familiar with blood. The female Druids also moved about in a troubled order, their hair dishevelled, their garments torn, torches in their hands, and, with an horror increased by the perverted softness of their sex, howled out the same curses and incantations with greater clamor.[15] Astonished at this sight, the Romans for some time neither advanced nor returned the darts of the enemy. But at length, rousing from their trance, and animating each other with the shame of yielding to the impotence of female and fanatical fury, they found the resistance by no means proportioned to the horror and solemnity of the preparations. These overstrained efforts had, as frequently happens, exhausted the spirits of the men, and stifled that ardor they were intended to kindle. The Britons were defeated; and Paulinus, pretending to detest the barbarity of their superstition, in reality from the cruelty of his own nature, and that he might cut off the occasion of future disturbances, exercised the most unjustifiable severities on this unfortunate people. He burned the Druids in their own fires; and that no retreat might be afforded to that order, their consecrated woods were everywhere destroyed. Whilst he was occupied in this service, a general rebellion broke out, which his severity to the Druids served rather to inflame than allay.